Bachman Information Systems Inc, one of IBM Corp’s less than entirely successful investments – IBM bought an undisclosed number of convertible voting preference shares in 1989 (CI No 1,242), says it has engaged Morgan Stanley & Co to assist it in exploring financial and strategic alternatives. The expression is usually a euphemism for asking the investment to look for someone interested in buying the company. IBM agreed to bless a range of software engineering approaches for AD/Cycle, offering those of Intersolv Inc, KnowledgeWare Inc and Bachman as alternatives. Intersolv is now out of the pictuee, and Bachman has suffered from the fact that IBM is now leaning heavily towards the KnowledgeWare approach. The Burlington, Massachusetts company lost $3.6m on sales down 12% at $8.1m in its fiscal first quarter to September 30 (CI No 2,040). The company said its policy is not to comment on activity in its stock, but it made the announcement in response to inquiries regarding the substantial increase in the price and volume of trading in its shares, which soared $2.50 to $7 on Thursday, suggesting that a deal is imminent.
